There are known types of harness for riding and/or handling horses, which include saddles, stirrups, reins, bits, and so on.
There are known headpieces and nose bands, i.e. belts that embrace the horse's head and that are used to control the animal by the rider or the person leading a horse or driving a horse-drawn vehicle.
In particular, the known headpieces comprise reins, which are strips of leather or lengths of cord attached to the ends of a metal element inserted in the horse's mouth, known as bit.
Said reins are held by the horse rider or the person leading the horse or driving a horse-drawn vehicle, who takes action thereon to change the direction in which the horse moves. In fact, said reins pull on said bit, which in turn comes to bear on the sides of the horse's mouth, and particularly in line with the corners of its mouth, which are extremely sensitive.
There are various known types of horse bits. Generally speaking, a bit is a metal element that is partially positioned inside the horse's mouth, at the level of a space in the jaw, known by the name of bar, with no teeth.
The bits of the known state of the art comprise at least one central element, or mouthpiece, usually with rings on either side for attaching the reins.
Said mouthpiece may be a single element or may be jointed at one or more points, while various types of rein ring are known, such as the D-shaped rings, for instance.
The mouthpiece is inserted over the tongue and presses on the bars, where the jawbone is covered only by a thin layer of gum and is consequently extremely sensitive.
It is important for the type of bit to be suited to the horse, i.e. it must be of suitable size in order to function effectively and cause the horse the least possible discomfort.
In the known types of bit, the mouthpiece, i.e. the part inserted inside the horse's mouth, may be completely or partly made of steel, iron, copper, aluminum, or various types of alloys and combinations of the same.
Some of these metals, including iron and copper, deteriorate with time, especially due to the oxidizing effect of the horse's saliva and water.
It is also common knowledge that not all metal materials are biocompatible, i.e. they are not all suitable for coming into contact with an animal's teeth, gums and oral cavity in general.
Furthermore, traditional horse bits are made with some types of metal that generate an exchange of galvanic currents on the piece surface and that with these currents stimulate the horse's salivation.
Mouthpieces are known that are made using parts in titanium, a metal characterized by exceptionally light weight and high resistance.
Titanium is also very corrosion-resistant and is biocompatible because it has a surface porosity similar to that of animal tissues, so it is physiologically inert.
At present the pieces are worked with traditional mechanical tools such as lathes and cutters. These types of processing often cause the formation of microcracks that lead to the generation of flaws in the material, with the risk that the piece, if subjected to mechanical stress, may even break.